DeMaurice Smith: the smartest man in sports?
Roar Guru Related coverage
DeMaurice Smith and the rest of the NFL player’s union executive are damn smart. They knew the current collective bargaining agreement had an early-out clause, and they suspected the owners might use it.
So, very quietly, they took out Lockout Insurance, enough to pay for $200,000 of replacement salary for the entire locked-out NFL-playing staff.
They took it out so quietly that no-one outside the union’s executive knew it existed until Domonique Foxworth, Baltimore Ravens cornerback, union delegate, and contract negotiator, revealed its existence to the NFL team owners as part of negotiations on Thursday morning.
Subsequently, NFL team owners have rolled over on minimum expenditure by teams, on fifth-year rookie salaries, and on the minimum percentage of league revenue going to players.
The billion dollars off the top is gone.
And while Brady et al will be dropped, there is no news of the $834 million on the table as part of the Justice Doty judgement that the NFL had conspired against the players in the last television contract.
That had allowed NFL owners to be paid even if there was no football because the NFL owners locked out their workforce.
I don’t care what team you follow or what code you follow, you want to hire DeMaurice Smith or any of the NFLPA executive to run your team or your code. They are that good.
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